The current complaints from the State Attorneys General focus primarily on Google allowing illegal sites to show in the organic search results and related queries appearing in the auto complete feature. Bad ads have not been cited as a factor in their objections. This is an area where the search giant has made obvious strides since Google’s $500 million settlement in a DOJ investigation over charges that the company allowed Canadian pharmacies advertise illegal pharmaceutical sales without prescriptions in 2011.

In tests today, either no ads showed for queries like “oxycodone no prescription”, “no prescription needed”, “online pharmacy india”, or ads from brand name pharmacies like Walgreens, Drugstore.com or from the drug makers themselves appeared for queries like “online pharmacy no prescription”.

Google’s Barea says that as of 2010, Google permits only U.S.-based online pharmacies accredited under the National Association Boards of Pharmacy “VIPPS” program to run pharma ads in AdWords and that there are less than 40 VIPPS certified pharmacies operating in the U.S.

Interestingly, Google contracts with LegitScript, an independent company, to sweep for bad pharmaceutical ads. According to LegitScript, the number of illegal drug and pharmacy ads on major search engines has declined by 99.9% percent since 2010.

About The Author

As Third Door Media's paid media reporter, Ginny Marvin writes about paid online marketing topics including paid search, paid social, display and retargeting for Search Engine Land and Marketing Land. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She provides search marketing and demand generation advice for ecommerce companies and can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.